Follow the Sun (16 page)

“Why
do
you kill people?”

“If they’re trying to kill me or someone I’m responsible for protecting. And I’m retired from that line of work. I’m just a plain, ordinary private investigator now.”

“Hmmm. I see. My father had no respect for PIs. He said they spend their time peeking through keyholes.”

“I’m not quite that disgusting,” Jeopard told her drolly. “I peek through keyholes, but only for big corporations and governments. I peek through
important
keyholes.”

“And con innocent people out of their possessions.”

Jeopard ground his teeth. She was retaliating for all that he’d put her through, and she obviously wasn’t afraid of him anymore, or she wouldn’t be so cocky. At least that was good.

“What else would you like to know about Kara?” she asked innocently, still stirring the soup.

“Why you wanted to keep one of the more mediocre royal diamonds. Why not steal something worth more?”

She didn’t say another word to him.

T
ESS WOKE TO
a strange snuffling sound. She propped herself on one elbow and stared into the
moonlight outside the cave’s entrance. Leaves and twigs crunched under ponderous feet.

She tugged at her chain. Jeopard could run. She couldn’t. Tess made a small fearful sound.

“Sssh, I’m here,” Jeopard whispered in the darkness.

Tess realized that he had slipped across the cave to her. He lay down on his stomach beside her. She caught a glimmer of steel in his hand and realized that he held one of the several guns Drake had supplied.

He pressed a tiny piece of metal into her palm. “Open your padlock.”

Surprised, she fumbled with it, but finally got the lock undone. The chain fell in a heap on the air mattress.

“Come here.” He put an arm around her and pulled her close to his side, shielding her with his body. Tess clutched his warm, hard waist and realized that he wore nothing but briefs.

The night was muggy, and she’d slipped off her T-shirt, so that she wore only her panties. Fear made her ignore that fact as she pressed herself to him and peered over his shoulder.

A huge, dark shape lumbered into view and stopped at the entrance to the cave.

“Bear!” she whispered.

“I know you are,” he whispered back in a voice choked with relief and amusement. “I can feel both of your breasts against my side. Your nipples are hard.”

The situation was too unsettling to allow her to think straight. She tweaked his back in playful rebuke. “What if it comes into the cave?”

“Know any Cherokee formulas that basically say, ‘Get away from me, you big monster’?”

“No! The Cherokees had a lot of affection and respect for bears!”

“Lovely. Just lovely. Cover your ears.”

Tess barely had time to clap her hands over her head before Jeopard fired the pistol. A tremendous
reverberation rolled through the cave. The bear bolted into the night.

Her chest heaving, Tess grabbed Jeopard’s forearm. “You didn’t have to shoot him! Damn your cruelty!”

“I just fired a shot over his head! Lord, Tess, do you think I
like
hurting things?”

She inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, I just assumed—”

“That I like to kill.”

She bent her head to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Sorry.”

He rolled to one side, snatched the chain into his hands and put it back around her waist, then fiercely snapped the padlock into place. He took the key back and started to push himself away.

“Jep. Oh, Jep, I misjudged you this time,” she said sadly.

The sound of the nickname sent a shudder through him. “This time,” he said raspily. “Just this time, you mean.”

His hand brushed across her firm, full breasts as he drew back. He cursed darkly and returned to his own side of the cave.

Later he heard her crying in a way that told him she was doing all she could to stifle the sound.

CHAPTER 9

W
HEN HE WOKE
up the next morning she was sitting at the end of her chain as close as she could get to him, watching him solemnly, her hands latched around her updrawn knees. Jeopard caught his breath and lay very still, as if she were a wild animal he might frighten away.

She wore a long, colorful cotton skirt that Drake had picked out in a whimsical moment—it looked like something a pioneer woman might wear, he had mumbled—and a white T-shirt with the tail tied in a knot at her waist. The white shirt made her honey-colored skin look more dramatic; her hair was dark silk against the white background.

She was barefoot, and she dug her toes into the earthen floor as if she were scratching the mountain’s back. Except for her hypnotizing silver-blue eyes she could have been a Cherokee princess dressed for the wrong century. The picture she presented was earthy, serene, and extremely feminine.

“Good morning,” she said. “I apologize for hurting your feelings last night.”

“Oh.” His chest swelled with pleasure and relief at her simple words. The night before, her crying had upset him more than her accusations. “I didn’t know I had feelings to hurt until I met you,” he offered gruffly.

She tilted her head in bewilderment.

“Never mind,” he said quickly. “What I mean is, apology accepted. Are you all right? I heard you crying.”

“Yes. Fine, the, urn, the bear upset me.”

Sure, the bear was the big problem. Jeopard couldn’t resist. “The bare what?”

She looked at him with guarded amusement. “The bare man who flopped onto my mattress carrying a gun.”

“I like to be ready for action when I meet a bear.”

“A bare what?”

“A bare woman who snuggles close to me for protection.”

This conversation was not helping him get out of the sleeping bag. Jeopard idly glanced down at himself, checking to make certain he was covered. He slept with the bag unzipped and sometimes threw the top back when he got warm.

He woke up hard and aching for her every morning, but since he usually woke before she did, he was able to keep his passion from complicating matters. Just then it would have been impossible to hide it.

“I’d like to go into the woods and look for wild roots,” she said politely. “Will you take me?”

Jeopard choked back a pained laugh. She could stay right there and find what she wanted. “Sure. What kind of wild roots?”

“I’ve been reading a book on herbs the Cherokees used. Since we don’t have much else to do, I thought we could go on a field trip.”

She paused, lifted a hand to caress the medallion and amulet she had taken to wearing all the time, and
added, “But I’d like to visit the creek first. It’s an old ritual, to ‘go to water’ every morning. The Cherokees did it for spiritual reasons.”

Jeopard gazed at her with bemused admiration. “You’re becoming a Cherokee.”

“Yes.” She touched the thick silver chain and looked a little downcast. “I even feel oppressed now.”

T
HAT REMARK STAYED
with him, making him feel terrible. He moved back on the creek bank, holding the end of the chain but trying to let her have some privacy. There was something reverent about the way she stood in the creek watching the sun rise over the distant mountains.

She had her skirt tucked up to her thighs; regardless of what her ritual meant, Jeopard wouldn’t have minded standing there every day at dawn watching the water touch her. He envied it that intimacy.

She bent and scooped water into her hands. “There were a number of ceremonies connected to the rivers and creeks,” she called over her shoulder. “The basic idea is that the water cleans your spirit.”

Jeopard wondered why she felt the need for it that morning. Was she trying to say that she felt guilty for thinking so badly of him?

“Maybe I should go stand under the waterfall,” he called back.

She nodded. “Maybe we both should.”

“Come on! Let’s do it!”

She looked at him in astonishment, then smiled for the first time since he’d kidnapped her. “All right!”

Jeopard made his way along the bank while she waded up the creek. When they neared the waterfall and its pool she stopped just out of the reach of the spray, shivering.

“It’s cold enough to make a person feel
very
virtuous,” she said between chattering teeth.

“Good. I need that.”

Jeopard wore only shorts and hiking shoes. He
climbed onto a rock by the pool, kicked off the shoes, and began tugging at his shorts. She looked up at him wide-eyed.

“Maybe you want to wear wet clothes all morning, but I don’t,” he explained, squinting at her innocently.

“Hmmmph.” She pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a bra so flimsy, it was transparent.

Jeopard did a double-take. “I’ve never seen that before.”

“Drake brought it. I told him that I needed a spare.”

“I’d like to have seen the saleswoman’s face when seven feet of Drake Lancaster walked into the lingerie department.”

“I think Drake has a romantic side.”

“No. He’s not comfortable around women. They’re intimidated by his size and the fact that he’s such a loner. It’s a shame, because he’s a good man.”

“Any man who picks out lingerie like this is more comfortable around women than you think.”

Tess removed the bra and held it in her hand. It was obvious to Jeopard that she intended to look at the bra and not at him, now that he was naked and she was bare from the waist up.

She has the right idea, he thought as he felt a tightening low in his belly. Carrying the end of her chain as usual. Jeopard quickly stepped under the waterfall and stood with his back to her. He could feel his skin shrinking from the frigid shower.

“Virtue!” he shouted in a strangled voice. “Give me virtue!”

A few seconds later she crept under the fall and stood beside him. He looked at her through the veil of water pouring over their heads. She’d removed the rest of her clothes.

She had her eyes shut and her arms crossed over her chest. She shivered violently and hugged herself, then opened her eyes and gave him a watery smile.

Progress
, he thought. She was freezing, but she was warming up.

A streak of light slipped through the water, turning it into a shower of pearls. They stood there gazing at the magical sight, then looked at each other.

His heart pounding. Jeopard held out his arms. Sorrow and frustration filled her eyes. She nodded toward the end of her chain, which he still held in one hand.

He dropped it. It disappeared into the water around their legs. She looked as if she were bound to the waterfall and the mountain.

In a way, she was. Her Cherokee ancestors had been part of this land for centuries.

Jeopard groaned inwardly. If she’d let him, he’d cherish that heritage and become part of her life. He continued to hold his hands out to her.

She pointed to the chain. “Promise me that you’ll take this off when we get back to the cave. And you’ll believe what I’ve told you about the blue diamond.”

After a tormented moment. Jeopard lowered his arms to his side and shook his head wearily. She pressed her hand over her mouth in distress.

With quick, angry movements she pulled the chain out of the pool and gave the end to him. She left him standing under the beautiful water alone, and went to dress.

T
ESS DIMLY REMEMBERED
some rules about decorum and elegance; rules she’d learned at boarding school in England. They belonged to another life, one she didn’t miss.

She loved the feel of the dark, damp earth under her knees and hands as she knelt on the forest floor, digging into it with a large spoon. She almost forgot that Jeopard sat at the other end of the chain, watching her with a troubled expression.

She almost forgot that she’d wanted to throw herself into his arms at the waterfall this morning; that she’d been tempted to say that nothing mattered but taking him into her heart and her body again. What
was she becoming, a chained pet devoted to her master and ready to do whatever he wanted?
No
.

“Got it,” she said excitedly, and held up a dirty root for Jeopard’s perusal.

“Oink,” he replied.